Such an obscure title, but this is a reference to the Tessuti Mandy Boat Tee crossed with the Muresk top previously made here and here. I didn’t create this pattern, Sarah from Workspace Fashion and Design School did, taking the original pattern we created from the top I found at the Fibres West garage sale and melding it with the Mandy Boat Tee. She didn’t like her first iteration so I was lucky enough to score it. You’ve already seen it teamed with my new Jalie Éléonore pull on jeans but I also love it with my new Hudsons.

This first iteration has the dimensions of the Mandy tee with the style lines of the Muresk top. One of the things that Sarah did was to make the sleeves doubled so that they could be neatly turned up into a cuff . She also made the sleeves three-quarter length à la the Mandy Tee.

As she didn’t like the width of the top, she modified the pattern so that it became a bit of a cocoon shape. I extended the length of the sleeves but probably went a bit overboard. I shall knock a couple of centimetres off in the next version.

I made this version from a cotton knit from Knitwit. I really liked this fabric until I saw it made up when I felt like I was wearing a David Jones bag! For those of you not resident in Australia, David Jones is a large department store and their logo includes a tesselated houndstooth, which reminds me of the weave in this fabric. They aren’t really the same, but from a distance they have the same look.

I did have a bit of a go at pattern matching, but it gave me a massive headache so I abandoned that particular ship and hoped for the best. It’s not perfect, but it’s not bad. I used the other side of the fabric for the neckband and had a lot of trouble making the neckband sit flat. I don’t know if the neck stretched out but I almost had to gather it to make it look halfway decent.

Just to prove that I do wear my outfits in the wild, as it were, here is a photo taken when Mark and I had an excursion to Manjimup recently. I am sitting writing a blog post, believe it or not and it was tipping it down with rain outside so the fire was lovely.

I lived in Manjimup for a year when I first graduated so it’s always nice to revisit and show Mark where I lived (the motel!) and where I worked (the local high school), and importantly, where I spent weekends (on the Blackwood River in a kayak).

You will notice that my Éléonore pull on jeans go pretty well with the second version, and the Hudsons in the first are made from a stretch woven from Knitwit. The scarf is one I knitted from some Qiviut yarn I bought in Lake Louise. Qiviut is derived from the underwool of a Musk Ox. It is eight times warmer than wool and finer than cashmere, it is hypoallergenic and is totally luxurious. This scarf weighs 25 grams and is gorgeous to wear. I also knitted one for Mark from the same yarn but with a different pattern and slightly different colour. They are short because the yarn is eye wateringly expensive so a six foot long scarf is out of the question!! The yarn is gathered and processed by the First Nations people in Alaska and I’m happy that it’s ethically sourced and profits go back to local communities.